The Way I See It is a blog published at least three times a week containing thoughts and analysis and irreverent musings on the local, state, and national sports world.

Chiefs left with more questions than answers

About this blog

By Dennis Miller

My name is Dennis Miller and I am a lifelong resident of Kirksville, MO. I have been totally blind since birth and a sports fanatic just as long. I like all sports but love baseball and am a proud lifelong member of Cardinal Nation. It is my honor
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My name is Dennis Miller and I am a lifelong resident of Kirksville, MO. I have been totally blind since birth and a sports fanatic just as long. I like all sports but love baseball and am a proud lifelong member of Cardinal Nation. It is my honor to be given the opportunity to write a blog for the Kirksville Daily Express and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Wow, the Chiefs lost, who would have ever thought that would happen. The Kansas City Chiefs brought to a close what has to be the worst season in franchise history on Sunday by losing to the Denver Broncos in a game I didn’t even bother to watch. The Chiefs are now guaranteed the first overall pick in the NFL draft in April and will most likely pursue a quarterback. Unfortunately, there don’t appear to be any exceptional quarterbacks who will be part of 2013’s draft. There are several good young quarterbacks out there but most of them have elected to actually pursue a college education and not come out early. This leaves the Chiefs to ponder the available choices. This also raises the question of who exactly will be pondering those choices as the Chiefs need to make major wholesale changes including getting rid of their general manager and their coach both of which need to be done quickly. If they do neither then it really doesn’t matter who they draft in my opinion because things won’t be getting any better.

The St. Louis Rams are in a much better place and although they lost Sunday they show lots of promise and I expect them to be a force to be reckoned with in the next couple of years. We’ll have much more on the NFL later in the week.

The Missouri Tigers men’s basketball team lost a tough one on the road late Friday night losing to UCLA in overtime. The Tigers not only had to play a very tough young UCLA team but also had to contend with some of the worst officiating I have seen in recent memory. Missouri showed a lot in Friday’s game but also showed it has some work to do as they were outplayed several times during the game. I think Friday’s game was a wonderful learing experience for them which will help them tremendously when they get into SEC play.

There are something like 15 college football bowl games between now and January 7. We are going to preview some of them this week but certainly can’t cover all of them. One of the interesting matchups on Monday is between Georgia Tech and USC. USC looked to be headed to the Rose Bowl at one point before losing a couple of key games in mid season. Georgia Tech for reasons I’m still trying to figure out is playing in a major bowl game with a record of 6 and 7. If you have a below .500 record then you shouldn’t be in a bowl. There are teams out there who had better records who deserve Georgia Tech’s spot much more than they do in my opinion. However they don’t have the name value of Georgia Tech so there you are.

Monday night’s feature game is a top 10 matchup between a very good LSU team and Clemson. This in my opinion is the two best matched teams to play one another in a bowl game up to this point and is kind of the kickoff to the better bowl games to come.

Tuesday’s games feature a Rose Bowl which in my mind has lost some of its luster but that’s not the fault of the Rose Bowl. Stanford who rode a late season surge the PAC 12 title which earned them a trip to the Rose Bowl plays Wisconsin who won the Big 10 title by crushing Nebraska in the title game. However, Wisconsin comes in with a record of 8 and 5 and actually finished third in their division of the Big 10 but played in the title game because Ohio State and Penn State were not allowed to go to bowl games this year as they are being “punished” by the NCAA. I just wonder if the NCAA realizes that when they do this stuff it not only hurts the school but also the fans, the bowl game organizers, the city in which the bowl is to be played, and the network carrying the bowl game which of course is ESPN. The people who actually are responsible for whatever NCAA violation the school is being punished for are almost always long gone and the punishment ends up only affecting those who had nothing to do with the violation. It is totally absurd in my opinion.

Tuesday also features a game between a Nebraska team that didn’t live up to expectations and Georgia who narrowly missed being in the BCS title game by losing a very good game to Alabama. This is an interesting game in my opinion because you have a team in Nebraska trying to salvage a season that at one time looked very promising and Georgia who came so close to beating the Crimson Tide back on December 1.

Of course Tuesday ends with the Orange Bowl and it will be interesting to see how Northern IL handles being in the spotlight. My prediction is not well at all but we’ll see.

We’ll be back on Wednesday with more previews of upcoming bowl games and whatever else comes our way. Please continue to support all the blogs on this site and thanks for all your support over the past year. I look forward to writing many more blogs in 2013.